Shall Machines Divide the Earth

by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

  Ouru is waiting for me in the scriptorium, holding in zer hand a long, pleated scroll made of sapphire paper. Ze nods at me. “Thanks for being reasonable.” Then, as if seeing me or rather my body’s specifications for the first time, “You’re mostly prosthetic. Is that by necessity or by choice?”

  “I could take that as a very rude question.” From one of the shelves I pluck a hand-bound volume: a theological text that addresses different, syncretic versions of the Siddhartha myth. One has him, the holy prince, as always having been an androgyne. “It’s by choice. I could have had my limbs regrown, but I preferred cybernetics.”

  “Hell of an upkeep.”

  “Fine once you’ve acclimated; better if you have the means to ease the procedures.” I nod at the virtual setting. “You’re devout?”

  “Yes. Just not the pacifistic kind. Judging by your name and accent, you must’ve grown up somewhere Theravada-majority as well.” Ze folds up the scroll and returns it to its place. “You’re working with Recadat, correct? I’m surprised she would let you talk to me. That’s a single-minded young woman.”

  “What caused your falling out?”

  Ouru’s chuckle is like abacus beads. “She believed her need nobler than mine and that I ought to give way to her when the game has whittled down to the two of us. Each of us believes our cause is the most just or the most urgent, no? I regret that I ever gave her the impression I’d yield victory to her—I don’t like parting ways in acrimony. But it is what it is.”

  I run my fingers over the volume in my hand, appreciating the fine detail: the textural arrays, the faint smell of old paper. “What’s your goal, then?” The great wish, the desire that burns so bright in Ouru’s soul that ze would risk zerself in unfathomable machine schemes.

  “I could just not tell you. But it’s no secret—I told Recadat. I’d like to become a haruspex.”

  Why is everyone obsessed with that, I wonder. The advantages are attractive enough now that—allegedly—the process has been perfected: no more botches like Eurydice. A haruspex is revered on Shenzhen, granted not just comfort but every available privilege. Access to the cutting edge of anti-agathic extension, as close to immortal as a human can get. That was one of the draws for Eurydice; she wanted to live forever. “Bypassing the usual petition process, including Shenzhen’s prohibitive immigration control, I’m guessing.”

  “Precisely. The usual process—well, they take few applicants, the criteria are vague and nebulous. This way it’s guaranteed.” Ze gestures toward the far end of the scriptorium, at a window lit by an emerging sunrise. “I don’t intend to lose. Under no circumstances will I forfeit. Do you understand, Khun Thannarat?”

  At the window a figure coalesces, blue-black smoke solidifying into a silhouette and then a clear shape—Houyi’s Chariot. My first good look at the regalia. Broad-shouldered and about my height, as Recadat said. Their face remains hidden, save for a visor through which their eyes burn like twin reactors.

  “I admire when a person has a clear objective they work toward.” I nod. “Ensine Balaskas has sent me her calling card.”

  “Then I anticipate you and your regalia will soon be destroyed. My condolences in advance.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure.” My eyes remain on Houyi’s Chariot, drawn to the outline of them limned by oil-slick corposant. “Not very talkative, are they?”

  “Houyi talks when they deem the world fit to hear their voice.” Ouru gives zer regalia a small fond smile. The expression transforms an unremarkable face into a tender portrait. “Now, you’re going to ask for my cooperation against Ensine. My answer is no.”

  “My regalia is Empress Daji Scatters Roses Before Her Throne.”

  A small twitch from Houyi. “So she’s back in the game, I didn’t think she would join this round.” Their voice is like a slow rockslide. “Ouru, consider her proposal. Daji is unusual.”

  Ouru lets out a soft huff, not quite a laugh. “Coming from you that is high praise. Nevertheless, there can only be one victor. I can’t share the prize.”

  The regalia makes a small, inscrutable gesture. “Daji used to be a haruspex.”

  That I didn’t anticipate, though it’d explain why my treasure of roses and pelts acts human so well—she used to share a body with one. Ouru widens zer eyes, expression turning thoughtful. Speculative.

  “I’ll ask her if she would vouch for your haruspex application,” I offer Ouru. “Put it on the table, though I can’t promise anything absolute. Houyi—what happens to regalia whose duelists have died or forfeited?”

  For a moment I expect the AI would not answer. Then they say, “Unattached regalia may not engage in combat without being partnered to a duelist, and they may seek a new duelist to bind themselves to. Ouru and I have been eliminating a number of them.”

  Five regalia remain. Only two are unknown variables. “Can one duelist bind themselves to more than one regalia at a time?”

  “Not without frying their brains.” Houyi does not elaborate. “We’ll be your allies, provisionally. Contingent on you convincing Daji to assist Ouru. And speaking of that, it’d be best if you leave now.”

  I start to ask. The virtuality’s fabric starts to rip. Scriptorium shelves give way to blinding gold. Chun Hyang emerges wreathed in its own brilliance, and where its feet fall Ouru’s virtuality singes and blackens. Houyi’s Chariot steps between their duelist and the intruder, spear drawn.

  No point staying and inquiring as to Ouru’s operational security. I pull free of zer virtuality. Back in the gym, in a wash of synaptic storm: the physicality of a hard bench, the sunlight pouring in, and the water murmuring outside. The warm weight of Daji has annexed my lap.

  “You were gossiping about me with Houyi.” She bites my earlobe, none too gently. “Very rude, Detective Thannarat.”

  “I was implying that you were resplendent, without peer.”

  “And yet you were asking Houyi if you could have more than one regalia.”

  “As a hypothetical. I don’t plan to adopt any. You’re my only partner.” I wrap my arm around her thick waist. “Your opinion on my little machinations?”

  “Clever that you intuited naming me would make Houyi talk. They and I are friendly rivals, though I don’t need their help to take down Chun Hyang.” Her delicate shoulders rise and fall. “I’ve battled Chun Hyang’s Glaive many times, across the rounds.”

  I trail one hand down her spine, languorous, appreciating each curve and bend. The architecture of vertebrae: brittle in a human body, impregnable in hers. “The records suggest Chun Hyang has won every round it entered.”

  She pinches my forearm. “The archivist is not a reliable narrator. What, you think we’d let him do this silly chronicling if his information was accurate? He’s part of Septet’s infrastructure. The papers he keeps have multiple versions.”

  I grimace; she laughs. “And you I am to take as reliable? Why make the Divide so deeply . . . difficult? The deceptions on deceptions, the double- and triple-crossing, the masquerades.” Though I haven’t yet met any human I’d suspect of being an AI, but that is the point. “The destabilizing of all aspirants and duelists.”

  “We didn’t create this to make it easy for you to win, Detective. There have been rounds where it was all pyrrhic victory or scorched earth where not a single soul emerged in triumph. This game’s for—” Her head cocks. “Aren’t you going to ask about my time as a haruspex?”

  Machines do not hesitate or misspeak. She’s not going to tell me about the Divide’s true aim, though I’m starting to glimpse the iceberg-tip of it. For now that’s a suspicion only. I set the thought aside. “I’m interested in a different question, Daji. Duelists risk themselves in the Divide for tremendous gain. Why do machines bother? Individually, not the great overarching purpose of the Mandate. It can’t be just to stave off boredom—this is too much investment.”

  “Says who? An AI can run a range of parallel threads, piloting scores of proxies. Even now I might be entertaini
ng a dozen other lovers.”

  “I can hardly fault your appetite.” I kiss her palm. “But I do aim to be your most interesting, such that when I occupy your attention I’ll force you to tunnel down to, oh, five others. When we fuck, that’s going to have to be down to two others at most. So what’s the Divide to you? Personally?”

  “Cocky.” Daji squeezes my thigh. “On Shenzhen, where I was made, a haruspex is the incubator for new AIs. You meld with a human and, at the end of this life cycle, the human half dies and is sloughed off. For me—for us—we ran into a . . . neurological incompatibility early on that made it no longer possible for the haruspex to hold. One of us had to give. My human half chose to sacrifice herself so I could continue.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. In me she’ll be immortal. I am her living memorial. But because our time was cut short, it gave me a peculiar longing; I don’t think many AIs share it. I don’t want to become a haruspex again, that was too limiting and I’ve been granted my full capacity since.” She runs her nail up my throat, drawing circles until she reaches my cheek. “I want a companion, Detective. Someone who’ll love and cherish me as my human half did. Someone who is mine, all mine, and who pleases me in all ways. The only one—once I’ve found this companion I will require no other. No more dalliances, no more diversions. Just her.”

  I smile, slight, against her thumb. “And have you found such a person?”

  “I’ve come close once; now I come closer still. I stand on the brink.” Her hand tightens on my jawline. “This time I don’t intend to lose. I’ll turn Septet to cinders if I need to. Victory, Detective, at any cost.”

  By late night I send Ouru a message; ze replies promptly that Houyi successfully repelled Chun Hyang, and that both regalia remain active. Peculiar, I think, that those two keep fighting and yet their battles lead always to a stalemate. Both are holding back, or are playing at a deeper purpose.

  “It’s not that,” Daji says when I bring up the subject after I wake up to her face between my thighs and we’ve had our mutual satisfaction. “Chun Hyang and Houyi have a complex. They want a single decisive fight, going all-out, having their duelists use every single override they’ve got. A huge spectacle; they’re building up to it. It’s popular with AIs back on Shenzhen and these two adore being the center of attention.”

  “It seems excessive to protract their skirmishes so they can have something worthy of the stage. I never knew AIs could be so theatrical.” My fingers rub along the soft fuzz of hair at the base of Daji’s skull, then against a few stray petals. She’s deactivated her custom perfume; currently she smells like me, of me. Cologne and coolant-tinted sweat. “I want to collect a few more overrides before we commit to anything. Are there more functions to them than the three I’ve seen—Seer, Retribution, and Bulwark?”

  “There are several more.” She nuzzles my bare stomach and giggles. “Oh, this is so firm. I love your muscles. I love your body, I can hear the nanites inside you: they make such an orchestra. There are several duelists remaining, and if any of them possesses overrides you could always . . . persuade them you’re in greater need of those.”

  Recadat, Ensine Balaskas, myself, Ouru. The rest of the duelists are unaccounted for. “Any override function I should look for?”

  “Bulwark is good—that’s for you, but you need me to activate it. Fortress is better; that’s a function for the regalia to deploy. Assembly is situationally useful.” Daji pouts. “More than that I can’t tell you. It’d violate the few rules I have to abide by.”

  “It’d help if these things had normal, descriptive names. Whose idea was it to implement so much obscurantism?”

  To that she only laughs, a bright ringing peal.

  There’s a niggling suspicion that I have. Over and over Daji has told me the rules are as bendable as blades of grass. That this is as much a game of deception as it is a game of might. “I’ll be heading out,” I say.

  “I’ll stay near.” Her tongue darts out, licking my thigh. “Walk without fear, Detective.”

  I don’t quite put on every piece of armor I own, but it comes close, and I leave the suite well-armed. No telling what to expect.

  In the lobby I pass by a wedding party: two brides in red, surrounded by people variously in qipao or shalwar-kameez, chattering excitedly and passing around gilded mandarins. There’s a sense of unreality to this—they’re attempting to lead normal lives on a world that’s anything but, when any moment they might become collateral damage to duelist conflict. I suppose life goes on, and eventually they’ll get the chance to leave this place for the paradise that is Shenzhen, where they will walk glittering streets and purchase gorgeous saris. Eat shark fins and abalones and elephant meat all day. Whatever people do in utopias: I haven’t had the chance to live in one, and I don’t really believe in any. For every surface of frictionless ivory and priceless gemstones, strata of rot throb underneath.

  The day is blistering. Libretto is only bearable indoors, and I wonder why every city here is intentionally uncomfortable—there are more hospitable climes on Septet, the Mandate could have built their stage-cities there. Instead they’ve chosen miserable swamps and scorching deserts, as though to make the conditions as dispiriting as possible, and to foment desperation.

  I reach Ostrich’s home; he’s less quick to answer this time.

  When he does, it is to part the door a few centimeters and peer out. I can smell the stench of his hygiene, or rather the lack thereof. The heat doesn’t treat him well, and he doesn’t appear to shower often. “Yes, Detective?” His voice is tremulous.

  “I need a little more information, Ostrich. Mind letting me in?” In my coat pocket, I grip my sidearm.

  A long pause during which I consider whether I need to show him my gun’s muzzle, that narrow deadly mouth. Guns can be an expression of the owner, for all that I am not sentimental. Mine is larger than average, the grip coated red-black, the rest of it matte. Fit for conventional ammunition of mid-high calibers, among other types; I like to think people I point it at can appreciate a little of its beauty. In my callow youth I thought of weapons as much like women, temperamental and lethal, compliant once they’ve found the right wielder. These days I’m less pretentious. But there’s still elegance in a weapon, the way it handles, the way it demands attention.

  Ostrich steps back. I step in. On his work desk there are stacks of new paper, some already filled with his notes. I pick up one sheet—from a quick skim, these are records of the current round. It contains information to which he could not possibly have been privy, including a list of duelists who fell in the Cadenza arena.

  “Preparing for the next round, Ostrich?” I page through the rest. Considerable level of detail, including how Daji and I met. Duelist pursued by Chun Hyang’s Glaive . . . late-game regalia activation, without precedent . . . “You’re thorough. It’s such specialized ethnology, isn’t it, such a unique society. Tell me, is there anything you want the most in life? You can’t possibly want to be stuck on this miserable world, in this miserable town, for the rest of your natural life.”

  “I’m content, Detective.”

  “No plans to go home? You must have friends and family back in the Catania Protectorate.”

  He shifts his weight uncomfortably, his eyes flitting to one of his statuettes, as if they might provide protection or solace. “I was banished.” With difficulty he adds, “For various reasons, but mostly because I didn’t want to marry a woman—any woman. Once word got out, it brought dishonor to my family and my congregation.”

  I’m aware, of course, that there are places where certain lines of attraction are censured or outright criminalized. It didn’t occur to me that Catania would be one of those, but then I know little of their religion. “Like a shrine maiden getting exiled because she engaged in a little carnal relation? That’s a raw deal.” Carefully I put down his papers. “Now tell me about your regalia, I assume it is still active.”

  Ostrich blink
s rapidly. “I’m sorry?”

  He’s a lanky man, not that much shorter than I am but so thin as to be skeletal. I lift him off his feet with one hand and slams him into the wall. He chokes on his own breath and saliva; drywall chips and rains down around him. One of the statuettes topples, its white cheek cracking against the grimy floor, its resin wreath fracturing. Brittle—these are not works of art built against impact but cheap replicas, badly extruded.

  “You can’t,” he gasps, “the overseer—”

  “If there’s a prohibition against harming you, we’d have been explicitly told, wouldn’t we?” I press my gun against the pulse-point in his throat. “Neither is there a prohibition against you entering the game as a duelist. Anything Wonsul’s Exegesis hasn’t forbidden is fair game, whether that’s you using insider knowledge or deploying a Retribution command on a sub-contest. So? I could kill you. If I’m wrong, well, no one said you can’t murder the archivist. If I’m right, it’s perfectly fantastic to murder another duelist.”

  “I haven’t done anything to you.”

  “Possibly not,” I agree amicably, though I wouldn’t consider an orbital strike nothing. “But I want to win. How come you didn’t attack the Vimana, out of curiosity?”

  “You’re staying there. I—I owed you.”

  Ah. Sometimes good deeds indeed go rewarded, and more duelists gathered in Cadenza than are accommodated at the hotel. He must have had only one Retribution to spare. “Appreciate it. How many overrides do you own?”

  He swallows, his laryngeal lump bobbing against my gun. “Five.”

  “Use one to destroy your regalia. Transfer the rest to me.”

  The room’s illumination strobes and flashes. Out of the corner of my eye I see several of the statuettes flowing together, assembling into a figure of feathered torso and antlered head, the face featureless except for two parallel silver mouths.